


Bonding for Introverts

by mandaree1



Series: it ain't technically a baby draft if they're your kids [25]
Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Baylea has become a hippie nerd I cannot dispute this, Bonding via Lab Partners, Cane being an actual literal deer, oh hey a reminder that everyone thought Entrapta fucking died
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:33:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25453957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mandaree1/pseuds/mandaree1
Summary: Cane and Baylea bond over a statue of Baylea's still-technically-alive mother.
Series: it ain't technically a baby draft if they're your kids [25]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1276295
Kudos: 24





	Bonding for Introverts

Plumeria is nice enough, but it doesn't really have a lot of solid building structures, which made Cane uneasy. Mud houses, tree houses, even a couple of tents. The people of Plumeria were travelers, going up and down the various traditional pathways they called home throughout the year; and to the child of farmers, who were there forever and ever and through even longer than that, it was all a little unusual.

Catra, perhaps sensing this, took one of his horns and maneuvered his head to bump skulls with him in a friendly manner. "Your mom and I are gonna go talk to Perfuma about repairs real quick. You okay to wait here?"

Relieved, he nodded.

"Good. Be back real soon, antlers."

Adora grabbed Cane in a very quick, very tight hug, and then they were gone. Cane slumped against the nearest tree and slid to the grass. He ripped up a handful, shoving it into his mouth with a low grumble. It was nice that his moms tried as hard as they did, despite not understanding a lot of his struggles, but it still got lonely waiting for them every time they brought him to a village.

 _They probably just think I'm too scared to join them._ He ripped up another chunk and chewed on it, disgruntled. _They'd probably be right._

"What does grass taste like?"

"Tastes like grass," he replied, then paused. "Wait, who said-"

Cane blinked, and in that second there was a plant between his antlers. He jumped, bashing his head on the roots, but after a moment he remembered. Right. Princess Perfuma and Princess Entrapta's adopted child.

"Bayleaf?" he said aloud.

"Close. Lose the F." Baylea blinked at him with something like amusement. Cane didn't know plants could feel amusement; but, then, he'd never met a living plant before, either. Plants went in the ground. Plants went and grew. Plants got eaten. Baylea without an F was a bit out of his range. "Perfumom asked me to play with you!"

"That was nice of her," Cane replied, but felt a bit embarrassed. He was too old for playdates! "But I'm fine here. Snackin' on... well, on the grass. Is that, like, offensive? To you? I've never been _in_ Plumeria before."

Baylea stuck a hand in his mouth, exploring. "You've got the teeth of an herbivore. Eat what you eat. Hey, if you don't wanna play, you wanna be my lab partner?"

"Lab... partner?" The words stuck in his mouth. "You want to poke and prod at me?"

"No! Well, yeah, a little, but I could ask any ol' faun for that." Baylea grabbed his ears and tugged, as if he were a motorcycle to be revved. "See, Perfumom wants to repair this old war site. That's why they asked for She-Ra to come."

"And Catra," he added.

"Her too. Entraptma always tells me to explore the world, and I haven't gotten to explore that part of it yet! It's driving me sideways bananas! You wanna go and take a bunch of samples before they blow it up with love rainbows?"

"Is this how you always make friends?"

"It's worked so far. Onward, lab partner!"

* * *

Cane ends up hoofing it- literally- to the old village. Baylea is entirely too eager to go digging around the site of slaughter, he reflected, even as he willingly gave them the piggyback ride to said site.

There's a change as they crossed the boundary from Plumeria of new and Plumeria of old. It was a stark, dusty feeling in the air. The plants beneath his hooves were yellow and stringy, untouched by magic for far longer than Cane had been alive. The trees were half their normal size, with weak output on leaves.

"Perfumom said the Horde poisoned this part of the land," Baylea explained, voice hushed, as they led him by the hand. "Nothing here is made from Etheria's magic, or even by Princesses. Isn't that amazing?"

"It doesn't look healthy."

"Well, of course not. We couldn't _eat_ any of this. But the fact that this place continues to thrive without the life the rest of this world feeds off of shows just how determined nature really is. It doesn't break. It just changes to something new."

Cane flicked an ear. Baylea made it all sound so fascinating, but he didn't really see the appeal. It just meant things here died slowly instead of fast, like people did.

Points crested the horizon as they came upon the remnants of a village. Time had been kind to the wreckage, in the way it always was to abandoned buildings- vines crept gently along the blasted holes of bombs, swords and spears highlighted pale flowers, and kudzu demolished old vineyards and farms. Cane shuddered and dug his hooves in a little, but Baylea just kept moving.

"People _lived_ here! That's even more amazing! So much can change is so little a time. I mean, if you didn't know what houses looked like, those lumps would just be weird hills!"

Cane remembered a village all his own and shuddered from tip to toe. He swallowed heavily as he tried to push away memories of fire and war and bloody corpses strewn everywhere. The dusty smell was closing in around his throat.

Ash.

It was old ash.

"What's that?" he heard them say; and, eyes glassy, Cane followed.

The center of the old village was a stone fountain, dried and empty, and leaning on it was the only magical plants Cane had seen on their escapade. The green of the vines were so bright it almost hurt to look at. Unattended to, they had rooted themselves in the dirt and stone, creating a hunk of greenery that undoubtedly had the face of Princess Entrapta.

"Oh," breathed Baylea. "I... I knew that Perfuma made a statue, but I... I never wondered what happened to it."

It was the first time Cane had heard a proper name come out of Baylea's mouth. Hand shaking, he wound his fingers through their viney hair. "C'mon," he whispered, terrified of waking up the dead. "Let's get out of here."

Baylea stared at their feet and nodded.

* * *

"The Alliance thought Entraptma was dead," they said finally, once they had crossed into the magical grasslands again. "For- I dunno, a while. No one really likes to talk about that part. Eventually, they found out she was living in the Horde, and she made some stuff for Hordak before returning to the Alliance." Baylea twiddled their thumbs, voice lowering. "She doesn't talk about it."

Cane didn't respond. He wished, almost desperately, that his parents could've had the same fate. Princesses had all the luck.

"Entraptma told me once-" Perfuma and Entrapta both told them a lot of things, he'd noticed- "That she broke the world. I never really knew what she meant. But I know she broke Perfumom's heart. Maybe that's it?"

"Maybe," he rasped. It was the first time he'd spoken in a handful of minutes.

Baylea looked curiously up at him. "Are you okay?"

Cane reached a shaky hand up to touch his face. His hand came back wet. "Sorry," he said. "Sorry."

"Someone broke your world, too, huh?" A surprisingly warm hand grabbed his, intertwining the fingers. "I'm sorry I made you feel bad."

"You didn't. I, uh... I've just never seen the implosion before. Not an old one." Cane sunk down to the grassy knoll. It was hard to stand at this point. "Is my village gonna look like that? Is everyone just gonna... plants?"

"It's not so bad."

"It's terrible. I don't want plants." He felt his face crumble as he regarded Baylea. "I want my mom and dad back."

Baylea pulled him close, and Cane, for the first time in a long time, let himself cry.

**Author's Note:**

> Not much to say on this one! Baylea is a lot of fun to write, and so is Cane. A tiny nerd meets a tol ball of anxiety. I hope you enjoyed!
> 
> -Mandaree1


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